One of the most annoying things about configuring a game is that you don't always know what's holding you back. Fraps gets the job done for frame rate, but I'm wondering if there's anything similar that can overlay not only FPS, but CPU, GPU, sys memory and VRAM usage?

Yeah, I manger to get afterburner working as an OSD, but it caused so many compatibility issues that I had to stop using it. Maybe it'll eventually be as reliable as fraps or the steam overlay, but it's def not ready yet. It was neat to see exactly what was causing the performance issue though.

What games were you using Afterburner with? I use it all the time when tuning performance in games, and have never experienced performance issues with it.

I'm sure it wasn't the game, it was all the other direct3d mods. 3d vision, modified dx9 files to make 3d vision work (helix mod), d3doverrider, and the steam/origin overlay. Afterburner was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I think D3DOverrider and MSI Afterburner conflict with each other, try disabling it.
Once Nvidia introduced adaptive v-sync, I stopped using D3DOverrider. If a game has a way of implementing triple-buffering the correct way, so that there's no additional latency, it's an option within the game's menus.
Forcing "triple-buffering" via D3DOverrider generally adds an additional frame of latency, which adaptive v-sync avoids.

I think D3DOverrider and MSI Afterburner conflict with each other, try disabling it.
Once Nvidia introduced adaptive v-sync, I stopped using D3DOverrider. If a game has a way of implementing triple-buffering the correct way, so that there's no additional latency, it's an option within the game's menus.
Forcing "triple-buffering" via D3DOverrider generally adds an additional frame of latency, which adaptive v-sync avoids.